The third film was good, but not as good as the first one. I felt the ending was way too drawn out, though this is probably because they left out the Saruman in the Shire episode from the theatrical version.

I personally loved the movies, not for the plot - I hated all of the plot changes. But the plot is in the book, if I want the LoTR story, I'll read the book again. I loved the movies for being, well, movies. The visuals were astonishing and Peter Jackson's vision of Middle-Earth really matched mine, the places, events, and characters were really similar to how I'd imagined them while reading (though Elijah Wood looks too young to be Frodo).

I do hate the fact that the movies really don't seem to take Tolkien's writing seriously. I've heard comments from various people around me (who have not read Tolkien) that 'Lord of the Rings is a children's fairytale.' (I usually follow up such comments with 'Read the book first, then judge,' but it's annoying to hear people say that)

I've boykotted the movies after hearing about the plot changes and then seeing the trailers (that really cemented the decision !!!) ... e.g. the bad persiflage of 'Braveheart' in the RoTK movie trailer that most of you might still remember ... I still shudder at that one ...

I WILL give the whole thing a chance, not as a visualisation of LotR, but as an only LotR-inspired fantasy movie, when I have all three movies in extended DVD version ... this will be one long session, indeed ...

Haven't even seen it? Excuse me? I most certainly saw it! All ~3 hours of it! (At least half of which were closeups of Arwen and Aragorn...)

I wasn't aiming that comment at you. Some have posted that they (and I am saying this in my own words) are boycotting the movie because it sucks. They haven't even seen it and they think they can make an informed opinion about it. If it bothers them that much that it doesn't exactly follow the books, that's fine by me. But as movies go, I found it extremely enjoyable. What movie derived from a book has ever followed it exactly or even come close.

I loved the movie, but I do not think that I could watch it as religiously as my aunt does (9 times now if I am not mistaken!) it gets a little long at the end, but it was a very good movie!

_________________Eyes burning, reaction rate diminished, vocabulary deteriorating...you have just been infected with the TOME addiction bug causing you to stay up to the wee hours of the morning playing this great game!

Mitharheru -- I've done 2/3 of the marathon. Just a couple of days ago, we got the extended DVD versions of the Fellowship of the Ring and the Two Towers. I've watched the two extended versions through, and loved them both. The extension added a quite a bit. Still more would have been even better, but I wouldn't be 100% happy until total repro of the books. Still, since that is practically impossible (and I mean that in the truest sense), I'm right up at the 95-98% mark. Yes, they took some liberties, but look at what else they did!

I've yet to delve into all the commentaries/extras/etc. Can't wait for the extended version of RoTK!

I've yet to delve into all the commentaries/extras/etc. Can't wait for the extended version of RoTK!

IMHO those commenaries/extras/etc. are great!!! Get to them as soon as you can; as stated before, my aunt loves these movies, she loves the books, she is the one that got me interested in these extra things!!! (She may be obsessed but hey, who's counting?!)

_________________Eyes burning, reaction rate diminished, vocabulary deteriorating...you have just been infected with the TOME addiction bug causing you to stay up to the wee hours of the morning playing this great game!

It really bugs me when people trash something like this without even having seen it.

Who dares trashing LOTR without even having seen it? I guess that somebody wiser than I am. If only I had been told before...

I remember having spend my very first euros in a ticket for FOTR. Worthless the money , since I run away from the theatre soon after Mortensen, Wood and the so-called hobbits met miss Tyler. A fiery aura (or was it a black malignant aura?) surrounded me. Glorfinder being replaced by... Arwen? Popeye? Gandalf on a white oliphant? who really cares about? ...Glorfindel's removal was more that I could stand.

"Wasn't enough for Jackson to repeate every single mistake of Baski's version? Did he really need to add so many errors from himself? That's ENOUGH. You've abused from my patience too often! Can on the beard of that vile traitor fall off his face!" I felt mad in anger.

The plot, the characters, the dialogs, the scenes, the places... nothing matched. Nothing seemed but a hideous counterfeit of the story I love so much. A Celtiquish soundtrack for the Shire? "Frodo" reading a book on a tree's branch?? "Gandalf" hitting his head against Bag-End lamps??? "Pippin" and "Merry" the rascals, the mushroom-thieves????!!!! It had been growing worse and worse from the very begining...

Groothewanderer wrote:

Overall, though, I think PJ did a great job interpretting the books especially after watching those crappy cartoon versions. What I say to the detractors is if you don't like it, go out there and make a better one yourself. It bugs me to hear people say of someone like PJ, who followed his passion and spent years of his life trying to fulfill a dream, get trashed for making an awesome set of three films. It wasn't meant to be an exact copy of the book. Hate to be cliche but "Get over yourselves." The only person who has any right to complain that he didn't follow the books exactly is Mr. Tolkien himself, and my guess is that he would be very pleased with this 'interpretation'.

No, he shouldn't. I guess he would had spitted on Jackson's beard. Not literally, since Tolkien was a gentleman, not a troll... but do you understand what I mean, don't you? Supposing he was the only person who had any right to complain (which I don't agree with), let's had a watch on some of his published opinions:

- look at On Fairy-Tales, note A, for "sensible fans" as being opposite at "great fans".
- look at his published Letters on previous adaptations from LOTR:

on BBC radio version: letters #175 to #177, #194, #198 "I believe that vulgarization would be less painful that foolishation attained by the BBC".

on (frustrated) Zimmerman's cartoon version: letter #201, #207, #210.

(For all of you that don't have the former books at hand, unfortunatelly, I currently can't supply true quotes in English language. ) I think that most of this stuff can as well be applied to Mr. Jackson's movies. May I be wrong at this point, at least it shows that Tolkien was indeed the Master of Nitpickers, complaining about such minor points like: "Hobbits at Isengard eating ludicrouly big sandwiches, instead of one smoking / the other one reading like I depicted in my book", etc. (letter #210).

@ Lord Dimwit

Oh, my dear, but your were asking about ROTK. I'm sorry, but I'm not wise enough for opining about a movie that I've not even seen, and I'm never going to see. I have no mouth, and I must cry!

I have to say, I loved all the movies - the extended versions especially, which cater more for the hardcore Tolkien fans like myself. Okay, they weren't entirely true to the books, but then, did they necessarily need to be in order to be good films in their own right?

I can't help but think that no matter how the films had been made, there would be some who would rave about them, and others who would condemn them. Ultimately, the only way everyone would have been happy was if each individual could make the films in exactly the way they thought they should be made. Personally, I choose to enjoy PJ's interpretation and the fruits of his efforts, and overlook the bits I don't like, until such time as I'm in a position to make my own attempt.

_________________"I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor."

How I envy you! I wish I was able to do the same! My idea of a perfect Sunday would be: wake up, turn on the DVD player, watching the expanded trilogy, turn off the DVD, go to bed. (Yes, I forgot about eating, drinking and going to the bath. No, I currently have not a life.)

But how can I accomplish that cunning plan, if just a half and an hour of FotR was enough to drive me frantic with the urge of killing people? (of killing Peter Jackson, to be exact). Since when reading Tolkien, the depictions form images into my mind and the dialogs become sounds, and neither the images, the sounds, the events, the action, the lookings or the voices from the books match the movie, plus I'm just *unable* to keep them appart, I can't help but looking at the movie as a king-size deception, rather than an free version.

About the soundtrack: I listened the complete original soundtrack of FoTR from a cassette I stole to my sister and, as a matter of taste, I didn't feel it was such a great work. Monotonous, repetitive, strident would be the words I'd choose to qualify it as a whole. Elven chorus are really frightening, they sound like a host of lost souls! Celtic stuff in the Shire seems ultimately misplaced. I must admit that some passage, taken isolately, is not as bad, and that the main theme is really sticky (I wish I could get rid of it), and it seems had been taken straigh away from 'Dragon Ball' titles. But I really can't figure out orcs without a Heavy Metal rift behind!

@blacksmurf: you don't have to like any of it, as darklaw is saying, he chose to enjoy it, as did I. some people chose to enjoy mystery, some horror, some romance, and some action. I loved the movie, and love it with each passing viewing; but, there are many like you who didn't like any of them because they felt it was a misrepresentation. there are also those who were bored by it because of it's length.

_________________Eyes burning, reaction rate diminished, vocabulary deteriorating...you have just been infected with the TOME addiction bug causing you to stay up to the wee hours of the morning playing this great game!

I just figure everyone's entitled to their opinion. I don't look down on anyone for not liking the films; and I hope no-one thinks badly of me for taking the opposite view.

As for me, I simply chose to enjoy some well-made films based on someone's interpretation of a story that I think is one of the greatest ever written. And if I perhaps don't agree with certain aspects of that interpretation, I'm not going to let it spoil my enjoyment. For example - no disrespect to Ms. Blanchett - I think Galadriel was miscast; and I did not like the scene at the Mirror. But I'm willing to overlook these things, for the sake of enjoying the rest of the film.

As I've said before, with High Fantasy works such as LotR, where the imagination of the reader plays a very important - if not the most significant - role in their overall enjoyment of the tale, no one individual's interpretation is going to entirely satisfy everyone, because everyone who reads the story will have formed their own ideas about 'how it should look', as it were. Therefore, if we fans of the original work want to enjoy the films, we have to be willing to lay aside our own ideas for a time (and maybe even - heaven forbid! - Tolkien's ideas, to an extent), and allow ourselves to be entertained by someone else's point of view. That's why I love these films; that's why I even love the animated version of LotR - because I choose to. And let everyone make up their own minds on the matter. As long as people are happy with their opinions regarding these films, then I'm happy for them.

Who knows, maybe one day those individuals who weren't satisfied with PJ's efforts will have the opportunity to make their own film version of the story. And I'll probably love that too!

_________________"I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor."

I love the animated version just for the Balrog wearing what seem to be fuzzy bedroom slippers. That and the look on Legolas' face when he tells Frodo to "Fly! Fly!" at the ford. If his expression doesn't scream out "Get me away from this smelly, smelly ranger!", then I don't know what does!

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